Flowerbug's Inkspot

Punched Windows

It was a stamp filled day for me, but I can't show you what I worked on yet since the cards are for three swaps I joined - 2 for my qcswappers group & 1 for the Control Freaks.  In a week or so I'll post them for you to see.

So anyway.... I did not get any punch art done today for my weekly blog series on Punch Art since.  But I thought I'd show you a card I did years ago that was highly popular with my friends & customers back then.  It's not punch art, but does use a punch to create a neat scene.

It's not the best photo, but you get the gist of it. 

I used my Tag Punch to make this window scene.  First you need to make a template.  My best advice to do this?  Punch out 6 tags & adhere them onto another piece of card stock in the perfect position.  Then, punch over the adhered tag punches to make your perfectly placed windows.  Easy!

The snowman & stars backgrounds are both retired SU images from a Tag Punch stamp set.  I believe I just hand cut the curved snow & added a bit of sponging. 

I'll post on Friday with a sneak peak from SAB (Sale-a-Bration) & the new Occasions mini stamps & accessories.   

Macho Nacho Night

A few weeks ago, my husband taught a men's class - we called it Macho Nacho night! The purpose of it was for men to make their wives Christmas card.  And the wives also gave their men their SU! Christmas wish list so they ordered some stampin' goodies for them too.

The Instructor was my husband Andy; the man on the far right.  It didn't take that much cajoling; I think he actually enjoyed this 'man's night' since there were quite a few laughs & the talking never stopped! 

There's been a few hints of more of these Men's Night's - at least from the women....!  

Here's the card they made....

 
It's not the best photo - I had a lot of trouble capturing the sparkly, golden Dasher.  As usual, it's so much prettier in real life.

I mixed gold embossing powder with fine, gold glitter from the Fine Galaxy stack.  The men embossed!  They were a bit apprehensive about it, but after using the embossing buddy, they stamped Dasher in Versamark & their embossing was perfect every time! 

Notice the black jumbo eyelet?  I colored our pewter eyelets with a black Sharpie.  Neat trick!  They used the crop-o-dile to set it & also the Petals-a-Plenty embossing folder with the Big Shot.  Lots of 'manly' tools. 

The ribbon is a retired gold SU ribbon.

I forgot to take a photo of the inside, but they cut out a Top Note from Vanilla cs & stamped & embossed their message onto that.

Card stock - Rich Razzleberry textured, Black, Vanilla, Brushed Gold

Ink - Versamark

Accessories - corner rounder, Big Shot, Petals-a-Plenty embossing folder, Top Note, embossing buddy, heat gun, Gold Glitter, Gold embossing powder, jumbo eyelets, black Sharpie, Crop-o-dile, gold ribbon  

North Dakota blizzard..... again!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!  Ours was very nice, but it was also quite exciting because of the weather conditions.

Before the big snow storm hit, we did manage to get to my Mom's home a few hours away.  Here's what we've been watching for the last few days.......

This is a car dealership - the snow is covering most of the cars & is up to the top of the doors & windows!  

You can just see the top of my sisters 5' fence & gate here!


The one above is our driveway when we arrived home after 3 days - after a path of snow was blown away to drive the car into.  This is what 25 inches of snow looks like when you add 40 mile gusts of wind!! 

But all was good - we were safe & warm; there was plenty of food of course & we did get to spend a few relaxing days home-bound with our family.  But we did worry about & miss our favorite critter while we were gone - Tigger. 

Here he is in his latest toy - a large card board tube he likes to play in.

More stampin' projects coming soon!

Punch Art Merry Dancin' Penguin

Well, it's a beautiful, snow-falling day here in North Dakota - unfortunately just in time for Christmas travel!  Plans may change for many of us here - our motto?  Better safe than sorry. 

I had fun making this little dancing guy.  I saw one similar on Ellen Kemper's blog a while ago. 

I used the wide oval punch for the white & black body pieces.  And also for his flippers.

The hair tufts on his head are made with the 1" circle punch.

Feet - Boho Blossoms punch

Beak - 5 Petal flower punch

He's fast & easy!

The present is a 1 1/2" square piece of Christmas Cocoa dsp & textured with the Petals a Plenty embossing folder.  Just wrap it with silver cord & add a bow. 

The background snowflake is also from Christmas Cocoa.  Beautiful flocked paper. 

Advent Gifts

This is what my amazing friend Pat made me this year!

 

She made 25 Pillow Boxes & filled them with all kinds of wonderful things; mostly stamping items like glitter, embossing powder, tweezers, ink refills, little baggies etc.  What fun it is to open a present every day 'til Christmas!

Can you tell that the pillow boxes are all different lengths?  She made many of them longer by cutting the die cut in half & cutting out & adding a center piece.  She just glued the ends of each piece together.  Clever huh?  Well that's our friend Pat!

Here's a picture of how it's done:

Can you see the original pillow box was made from the outer two colored snowflake pieces?  It's just one die-cut, but I cut it in half & then cut one more piece from the green snowflake paper by placing it in the middle area of the pillow box before die-cutting it. Then just glued the ends together. You can even double this middle piece by folding it in half before die-cutting it & you get an extra long one!

I adhered ribbon to cover the two areas where the paper met.  The tag is one of the rub-ons in the Merry & Bright rub-ons package adhered to Real Red card stock & punched out with the 1 3/4" circle punch.  I filled this one with Hershey's kisses. 

Oh, she says she didn't make the two open hat boxes - found them at a store somewhere.  Yup; she's amazing - our Pat is! 

Thank you my friend!

Ornament Exchange

Some of my Club members got together a few weeks ago for our annual Ornament exchange at a local restaurant.  Each person brought one ornament that had to be hand made using any type of craft.  

They were all gorgeous!  So many types of crafts - they were made with ribbon, ceramics, sequins, netting, card stock, wood & clay.  So fun! 

Here's the one I made using SU's lattice die:

 

To get this shape, I cut out 6 lattice shapes from thin white card board - you know my favorite board that comes in the back of SU's designer paper packs?  I scored each one from tip to tip, folded them in half & glued them back to back.  I prefer using Tombo mono-multi glue for this - it holds wonderfully! 

I let this set to dry for 1/2 hour or so.  Then added a thin coat of Crystal Effects to the entire surface of each lattice shape.  Sprinkle generously with Crystal chunky glitter from the Chunky Sprinkles glitter stack & let set.  I did two or three sides at a time before letting it dry an hour or so before continuing with the other sides.  

To finish it I threaded some crystal beads & pearls from our Pretties kit with our elastic silver cord & tied them on the bottom.  The top hanger is made from braiding three strands of the same elastic silver cord for a loop.

 

A Gift for You!

I want to share these cute Christmas gift tags I made on My Digital Studio with you.

To be honest, I have not played with My Digital Studio that often, but each time I do it is so fun to use!  If you are someone who likes to play on your computer, change things up with a touch of a button & have access to tons of SU images, accessories, colors & papers you will LOVE this program. 

After printing out the whole sheet on white card stock, I cut them into rectangles first & then used the Tag corner punch on the Dasher tag & the Curly label punch as an edge punch on the Sleigh tag. No measuring needed!  Just add ribbons or cord.

See below how you can print these out to make your own. 

I used the Brocade Baja Breeze background patterned paper on the above page & changed the opacity to 50%.  Love that feature!  It gives you so many more shades of our colors. 

Sleigh Tags

Dasher Tags

The background on the Dasher Tags above use one of the choices in the Christmas Cocoa designer series paper - a new available download.  Again I toned down the color a bit by reducing the opacity to about 55%.  Another great reason I like this option is it saves a bit on colored ink! 

These stamps are ones I do not own so it is so neat to have them for these tags.  And I was able to make both of these sheets in less than 1/2 hour! 

Click on the links above to download.  Then right click on the image, choose 'save as' to save on your computer before printing.  But be sure to set your margins to zero or as close to zero as possible when printing.

Merry Christmas from me to you!

Two-Toned Brayered Sky

I thought I'd show you the other card we made for December's card club.

A little embossing, masking & brayering & you get this!

Here's how:

1.  Rub your embossing buddy over your glossy white card stock.  Ink & stamp the trees from Lovely as a Tree in Versamark ink on the Glossy card stock.  Emboss with Iridescent Ice embossing powder.

2.  Ink some 'stars' with a small multi-dot stamp like the ones from Itty Bitty backgrounds in Versamark ink.  Stamp them in the upper left & middle right areas of the glossy card stock. *Be sure to leave room for your sleigh.  Emboss with Iridescent Ice embossing powder.

3.  Punch out a 'moon' from a post-it note using the 1 3/8" circle punch.  Place this onto your glossy cardstock where you want your moon.

4.  Ink up 1/2 of your brayer very thoroughly with Brocade Blue Classic ink. 

5.  Ink up the other 1/2 of your brayer with Not Quite Navy Classic ink.  It's okay to leave an un-inked area in the middle of the brayer in between the two colors of ink.

6.  Being sure to have the darker color of ink on the brayer towards the top of your glossy card stock, brayer over the entire piece quickly & smoothly until all the colors blend.  **I like to slowly move the brayer downward horizontally, bringing the darker part of the brayer slightly into the lighter ink area to blend the two colors being sure to keep the brayer evenly horizontal.

7. Ink the sleigh from 'Wandering Words' very thoroughly using Stazon black ink & stamp onto the brayered sky piece.  Try to get Santa in the moon if you can.

Here are a few extra hints & tips on this technique.

• Keep your fingers off the glossy card stock as much as possible before you brayer.  The natural oils on your skin can resist the ink & show up as fingerprints.
• I like to brayer starting 'on' the glossy card stock edge & not off onto your scrap paper.  I find that starting 'off' the glossy gives me a line where the brayer hits the edge of my glossy in the beginning.  
• Use a fresh post-it circle after each card.
• Clean the Stazon ink off your solid type image after one or two stampings, or it doesn't stamp as fully - almost like it resists the glossy card stock. 
  

Mystery 'Hostess' Party - everyone's a winner!

There's 6 days left in the Big Sale & I want to give away a few new stamp sets & even hostess benefits so I am having a Mystery Hostess Party! 

With 2 weeks left of the Holiday Mini catalog & less than a week left of the '12 Days of Christmas sale', you have a lot to choose from.   

It's a virtual workshop - all you have to do to get something free is to place an order of $25 or more.  Both local & long distance customers are welcome to enter, either online ordering or by e-mailing me with your order.  For each $25 order, you get one ticket.  And, get this - everyone wins!

****The three largest orders get first pick of free goodies, then I'll draw names for the rest. 

I have these current Hostess sets to give away:

Prize 1 - Snow Buddies

 

Prize 2 - Christmas Punch

 

Prize 3 - Patterned Pines

Plus I have these to offer too - card kits, a 6" DSP pack & some single stamps.

 

And all the Free Merchandise we get on the order I put in on December 22nd at 6 pm central time will also be offered in $15 increments. 

Details:

***I will contact the winners via e-mail or phone by Noon of Tuesday, December 22nd, so please watch for it so you can get back to me in time to place the order by 6 pm.  If I do not hear back from you, another name will be drawn.

List of FREE goodies:

• Your choice of the above 3 hostess stamp sets
• Your choice of catalog hostess sets - how many or which level they are depends on the amount of the final order I place on the 22nd.
  
• Free merchandise - how many $15 prizes depends on the amount of the order I place on the 22nd.
• Your choice of single stamps, card kits or 6" DSP packs. 
  

If you place a $150 order online that receives hostess benefits & it ships to you, I will still include you in the drawings & ship it to you.